Asrock dual sata 2 owners: are you having trouble with 1T command rate for your memory? please read inside for details

[hclarkjr]

in messing around with my memory settings in the bios i discovered that it was running the memory at 2T command rate by default for my memory (see signature below) so i set it to 1T in the bios and rebooted. was not stable at all, and certain things i did would cause the computer to restart. among those things was using microsoft word 2003, as soon as i click it to open it. instant restart. i found excellent article at ocworkbench that addresses this very issue. in reading that post there i see that asrock is aware of this problem but has not issued a fix via bios for it as of yet. my reason for posting this here is i want to see if anybody here including SynthDude2001 has found a workaround for this.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

AFAIK there is no workaround. 1T is generally stable at or below DDR266. Personally I get much much higher performance running 2T and 176MHz mem.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I'm reasonably sure (or at least I'd thought) that I had been able to run 1T at some point in the past with no problems (when I had 2x512MB)...now that I'm running 4x512, of course I probably can't do 1T now no matter what...It would require taking out two of my RAM sticks, which is kind of a pain, but I'll see if I can test 1T with two sticks sometime in the next day or two. Maybe I was just imagining things, who knows (but I do have this image in my mind of Everest reading a 1T command rate at some point...)

 

[Ike0069]

2T only for me. Fails test #8 on Memtest everytime at 1T no matter how loose the timings.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
I'm reasonably sure (or at least I'd thought) that I had been able to run 1T at some point in the past with no problems (when I had 2x512MB)...now that I'm running 4x512, of course I probably can't do 1T now no matter what...It would require taking out two of my RAM sticks, which is kind of a pain, but I'll see if I can test 1T with two sticks sometime in the next day or two. Maybe I was just imagining things, who knows (but I do have this image in my mind of Everest reading a 1T command rate at some point...)

If your board does 1T then I'll trade you! I don't think I've ever heard of one of these doing 1T and passing memtest (over 133 MHz). I think some people can run 1T but I think there was this Flash website that got it to crash every time

 

[ribbon13]

2x512MB 1T stable
2x1GB only stable at 2T

 

[Greenman]

I can get almost stable at 1T. That means opening Word only causes a restart about half the time :/

 

[designit]

Your memory is on hunger strike. vdimm not budging any. what a shame.
call up the vdimm doctor and give it a shot of voltage. no thanks doc, I just get me a dose of 150 ohm resitor and my memory will serve me just fine.
1T perhaps?

 

[Yianaki]

I have the cheapest 512x2 kingmax 400 ddr operating at 176.12 at 1t with the most current official bios. If i lower timings to 2t I can run memory at 220(ish?). Computer is noticable faster at 1t and the lower mem clock speed. ESPECIALLY for divx rendering, differnce is like 20%! I think you'll be better off lowering your memory divider. Don't use the OCW beta bioses, I could never get them to go to 1t no matter what, I was thinking my memory was bad.

This is a nice board with my opteron 165 but I really wish I got a opteron 170 cause I am hitting the max fsb (that Asusrock artificially limited the FSB in later bioses) of 274 with my 9x mult. I know this puppy has more to give if I could set the fsb higher. I should have just got a good overclocking agp board and then later upgraded to a pcie board. As it stands I am going to keep a hold of my 6800 untill they get some descent made with vista in mind video cards.

 

[im2good4u]

I also fail immediately at memtest test8 and 2T fixes this. but im still running 1T as my rig is still stable in browsing and even in gaming

 

[Copperpipe]

Originally posted by: Yianaki
I have the cheapest 512x2 kingmax 400 ddr operating at 176.12 at 1t with the most current official bios. If i lower timings to 2t I can run memory at 220(ish?). Computer is noticable faster at 1t and the lower mem clock speed. ESPECIALLY for divx rendering, differnce is like 20%! I think you'll be better off lowering your memory divider. Don't use the OCW beta bioses, I could never get them to go to 1t no matter what, I was thinking my memory was bad.

This is a nice board with my opteron 165 but I really wish I got a opteron 170 cause I am hitting the max fsb (that Asusrock artificially limited the FSB in later bioses) of 274 with my 9x mult. I know this puppy has more to give if I could set the fsb higher. I should have just got a good overclocking agp board and then later upgraded to a pcie board. As it stands I am going to keep a hold of my 6800 untill they get some descent made with vista in mind video cards.

I can testify to the above becausse I have the same memory in this mobo with an Opti144 running at 270 X 9. I can run my Kingmax at 1T at 173 mhz (133 RAM speed BIOS setting) that yields higher memory scores (memtest86 and Sandra05) vs. at 200 mhz at stock settings and 2T. Of course the overclocked CPU does in itself tend to increase memory bandwidth scores slightly, but still the 1T setting does seem to have a significant effect. How much of an effect this has on real applications is another question in my mind, however.

 

[hclarkjr]

now my question for those of you who know a little about bios settings and the bios in general what is stopping Asrock from fixing this via a bios update? they are aware of the problem according to the post i linked for.

 

[emilyek]

I have this problem, although I didn't think I did at first.

I have the sata2 Opty 146 and 2 gig Gskill HZ kit.

I can run 1:1 2.7g DDR540 @1T but big flash media on webpages and prnt screen + paste into paint will make me crash instantly. Gaming runs fine for hours, and then may or may not crash, depending on its mood. 2T/1T means 1k mb/s in Sandra for me-- 6k+ mb/s vs 7k+ mb/s. And at 1T, 2D apps load noticeably quicker. I've tried lots of different settings w/A64 tweaker and nothing helps. I run 2.8g and a 183 divider w/A64 tweaker for 254mhz @ 2T 24/7. It's stable there.

My guess is the reason they haven't fixed is is because it is a chipset/hardware issue that no bios can do anything for. But that's just a guess, of course.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Well all of the above posts have convinced me to try out 1T again. After doing some testing, I have exactly the same experience as everyone else. Around 145 MHz on the memory it starts throwing a few errors in Memtest test 8. At my normal overclock of 274*9, 2-2-2-8, 133 divider (memory won't run >195MHz in dual-channel), it throws about 20,000 errors in Memtest before rebooting itself.

So I just rebooted into Windows to see how it does. I'm really afraid to visit a Flash site now I need to run my little video-encode benchmark first.

Originally posted by: emilyek
My guess is the reason they haven't fixed is is because it is a chipset/hardware issue that no bios can do anything for. But that's just a guess, of course.

Yep. It could also be, of course, that they want to still give people a reason to buy the Asus boards that cost 2-3 times as much and surely have a higher profit margin. The 1T issue and the 274 cap on HTT really are annoying esp. with a 9x multi - really limiting my overclock.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Well 1t means 8.4% more memory bandwidth in Memtest86 with my current settings, and around 5.0% faster video encoding (that's a little optimistic actually, since I also changed to tRas of 8 between runs - found out that's faster for me). Gives an extra 20 points or so in 3dm05, couldn't finish 3dm03 (crashed) . go to 64seconds.com - wham bluescreen. Not really worth it IMO. I want to see who's getting these huge performance hits with running 2t

 

[KBTuning]

haveing not read anything really in this thread im running 1t on my board and ive had my Kingmax Value ram which is rated at DDR400 and CAS 2.5 as high as 224 at CAS2... i had to have the memory voltage at High which is only 2.8 or somethign like that.

 

[Ike0069]

This board will run 1T fine most of the time, but certain applications or web pages will cause an immediate BSOD.
For me, I just leave it at 2T so I don't have to worry about it.

 

[formulav8]

I seem to be one of the few that 1T DOES work for. I have 2x 512MB of Winbond BH5 memory. I run at 1T without any problems and even crank the memory over 235mhz at 222 timing with 1T enabled.

It could very well be certain memory chips the board doesn't like? Has any BH5 user had 1T problems?


Jason

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: formulav8
I seem to be one of the few that 1T DOES work for. I have 2x 512MB of Winbond BH5 memory. I run at 1T without any problems and even crank the memory over 235mhz at 222 timing with 1T enabled.

It could very well be certain memory chips the board doesn't like? Has any BH5 user had 1T problems?


Jason

Does it pass Memtest #8 with zero errors?

 

[annihilator3001]

I just wanted to post that my 939dual does this as well, setting to 1T restarts upon opening up Word but everything else seems to run fine (using Corsair Valueram 2x1GB)

 

[hclarkjr]

i have found that disabling macromedia flash animation helps out a lot with this problem.

 

[HPTech]

I've been using 2x1GB Sticks of OCZ GX XTC 2-3-2-10 1T with no problems for months now on this board.

 

[dunkster]

I can run Prime95 Small FFT Torture Test for hours at 252X11 with RAM timings of 2.5/3/3/5 at 1T Command Rate - but it fails immediately in the real world for any operation that requires significant memory transactions.

I've tried just about all the Asrock BIOSes and modded BIOSes, but the board will simply not stabilize with 1T Command Rate for real-world apps.

I think it's an outstanding board in other regards.

 

[imported_Seer]

Originally posted by: OvErHeAtInG

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001
I'm reasonably sure (or at least I'd thought) that I had been able to run 1T at some point in the past with no problems (when I had 2x512MB)...now that I'm running 4x512, of course I probably can't do 1T now no matter what...It would require taking out two of my RAM sticks, which is kind of a pain, but I'll see if I can test 1T with two sticks sometime in the next day or two. Maybe I was just imagining things, who knows (but I do have this image in my mind of Everest reading a 1T command rate at some point...)

If your board does 1T then I'll trade you! I don't think I've ever heard of one of these doing 1T and passing memtest (over 133 MHz). I think some people can run 1T but I think there was this Flash website that got it to crash every time

Mine does. I'm using 2x 1 GB of kingston value ram (rated 3-3-3-8) @192 MHz, 2.5-3-3-6, 1T. Do you know what this website is? I want to try it out, see if its stable with it.

Edit 1:
Yes, it passes memtest. Yes, it is stable gaming. Stable encoding, etc. I just did a test with a 5000x4000 pixel paste into paint and it was fine. I think the only one I haven't done is flash, which i don't really want to. It's not like I want to find out its unstable, not to mention I dont want to install flash...it's what all the advertisements are in.

Apparently, I do have flash installed.

 

[russki]

I used to own the motherboard and it NEVER was stable at 200mhz and 1T... just used 2T it worked VERY stably and the difference I'm sure isnt that big.